Why is ethical practice important?
Firms that operate within the financial services try to be as open and honest with their consumers with all types of business in order to create confidence among customers. Not all banks/services have profit as their primary goal, there are several financial services which focus on creating social and environmental benefits. So why are ethical policies important? Well it comes down to the customer and their morals with how their money is spent. All financial businesses have to act in an ethical way not just for the benefit and confidence of the customer, but for themselves and for the economy as a whole. The reason why ethical practice is so important for the financial sector is because it is at the heart of the economy; when ethical problems occur within this industry it affects all other areas of the economy. Ethical practices and policies are what keeps the financial services a trusted service for many UK customers. If the financial services didn’t have any ethical policies then the entire country would probably be ripped off in one form or another. There’s more to ethical policies than just keeping the financial services from exploiting its consumers. Businesses use ethical policies in order to gain reputation amongst its competition, showing that you are as open as possible to your customers can improve confidence among them and will entice new customers to join your service, if a financial service is seen to be dealing in an unethical manner it can be shown in a negative lime-light which would result in bad press and therefore its customers may decide to use another service that has policies to tackle to one at hand.
Lloyds have been criticised in the past for having too much pressure on sales advisers to reach high sales targets, being branded as ‘unethical’
An example of a financial service that is built around ethical practice it the Co-operative Bank. This